Man reunites with mother 31 years after allegedly being kidnapped by father

Lyneth Mann-Lewis, center, met her son over the weekend for the first time since he was 21 months old. (Tijana Martin / AP)

A Canadian mother has been reunited with her son 31 years after he was abducted as a toddler.

Lyneth Mann-Lewis said Monday that one of the first things she did was cook a meal for her now-33-year-old son, Jermaine, after flying down to Connecticut to see him for the first time since he went missing in 1987.

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“I am the proof that after 31 long years of suffering, one should never give up,” she said at a press conference, according to Global News. “Be patient, be strong, and believe that all things are possible and that anything can transpire.”

Mann went missing in June 1987 during a scheduled visitation with his father, Allan Mann, when he was 21 months old.

As he grew up, his father told him that his mother had died. His mother never stopped searching, but it wasn’t until 2016 that Toronto police and the U.S. Marshals Service began collaborating after a joint training session.

Officials offered few details, but said that the elder Mann had been arrested Friday after being tracked down using facial recognition technology. He had been living just outside of Hartford, Conn., allegedly having used counterfeit birth certificates for himself and his son for decades.

Allan Mann faces federal charges including making false statements in transactions with the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development.

"They lived, basically, a life of lies as to who they were and what they did, unbeknownst to Jermaine," Toronto Police Det. Wayne Banks said.

Mann-Lewis said she spent hours in a hotel meeting her adult son and cooking for him; Mann, a vegetarian, even ate the chicken she made.

"The words 'your son is alive, we found him,' that is breathtaking," she said. "Constant worry is finally over."

The grateful mother also shared the first words she heard from her son: “Mommy you have my eyes.”